Montcalm agreed. In fact, he had no choice. He was now completely cut off from the St Lawrence above Quebec. His army could not be fed by land for another week. Most important of all, by prompt action he might get in a blow before Wolfe was quite ready. There was nothing to wait for. Bougainville must have started down the river bank, as hard as his tired-out men could march. To wait for French reinforcements meant to wait for British ones too, and the British would gain more by reinforcements than the French. The fleet was closing in. Boats crowded with marines and sailors were rowing to the Foulon, with tools and guns for a siege. Already a naval brigade was on the beach.
Montcalm gave the signal, the eight battalions stepped off, reached the crest of the hill, and came in sight of their opponents. Wolfe's front was of six battalions two-deep, about equal in numbers to Montcalm's eight battalions six-deep. The redcoats marched forward a hundred paces and halted. The two fronts were now a quarter of a mile apart. Wolfe's front represented the half of his army. Some of the other half were curved back to protect the flanks against the other half of Montcalm's; and some were in reserve, ready for Bougainville.
Montcalm rode along his little line for the last time. There stood the heroes of his four great victories—Oswego, Fort William Henry, Ticonderoga, Montmorency. He knew that at least half of them would follow wherever he led. The three Canadian battalions on his right and left might not close with an enemy who had bayonets and knew how to use them, when they themselves had none. The Languedoc battalion of Frenchmen was also a little shaky, because it had been obliged to take most of the bad recruits sent out to replace the tried soldiers captured by the British fleet in 1755. But the remainder were true as steel.
'Don't you want a little rest before you begin?' asked Montcalm, as he passed the veteran Royal Roussillon. 'No, no; we're never tired before a battle!' the men shouted back. And so he rode along, stopping to say a word to each battalion on the way. He had put on his full uniform that morning, thinking a battle might be fought. He wore the green, gold-embroidered coat he had worn at court when he presented his son to the king and took leave of France for ever. It was open in front, showing his polished cuirass. The Grand Cross of St Louis glittered on his breast, over as brave a heart as any of the Montcalms had shown during centuries in the presence of the foe. From head to foot he looked the hero that he was; and he sat his jet-black charger as if the horse and man were one.
He reined up beside the Languedoc battalion, hoping to steady it by leading it in person. As he did so he saw that the Canadians and Indians were pressing Wolfe's flanks more closely from under cover and that there was some confusion in the thin red line itself, where its skirmishers, having been called in, were trying to find their places in too much of a hurry. This was his only chance. Up went his sword, and the advance began, the eight six-deep battalions stepping off together at the slow march, with shouldered arms. 'Long live the King and Montcalm!' they shouted, as they had shouted at Ticonderoga; and the ensigns waved the fleurs-de-lis aloft.
Half the distance was covered in good formation. But when the three battalions of Canadian regulars came within musket-shot they suddenly began to fire without orders, and then dropped down flat to reload. This threw out the line; and there was more wavering when the French saw that the Canadians, far from regaining their places, were running off to the flanks to join the militia and Indians under cover. Montcalm was now left with only his five French battalions—five short, thick lines, four white and one blue, against Wolfe's long, six-jointed, thin red line. He halted a moment, to steady the men, and advanced again in the way that regulars at that time fought each other on flat and open battlefields: a short march of fifty paces or so, in slow time, a halt to fire, another advance and another halt to fire, until the foes came to close quarters, when a bayonet charge gave the victory to whichever side had kept its formation the better.
A single British gun was firing grape-shot straight into the French left and cutting down a great many men. But the thin red line itself was silent; silent as the grave and steadfast as a wall. Presently the substitutes in the Languedoc battalion could not endure the strain any longer. They fired without orders and could not be stopped. At the same time Montcalm saw that his five little bodies of men were drifting apart. When the Canadian regulars had moved off, they had left the French flanks quite open. In consequence, the French battalions nearest the flanks kept edging outwards, the ones on the right towards their own right and the ones on the left towards their own left, to prevent themselves from being overlapped by the long red line of fire and steel when the two fronts closed. But this drift outwards, while not enough to reach Wolfe's flanks, was quite enough to make a fatal gap in Montcalm's centre. Thus the British, at the final moment, took the French on both the outer and both the inner flanks as well as straight in front.
The separating distance was growing less and less. A hundred paces now! Would that grim line of redcoats never fire? Seventy-five!!—Fifty!!—Forty!!!—the glint of a sword-blade on the British right!—the word of command to their grenadiers!—'Ready!—Present!—Fire!!!' Like six single shots from as many cannon the British volleys crashed forth, from right to left, battalion by battalion, all down that thin red line.
The stricken front rank of the French fell before these double-shotted volleys almost to a man. When the smoke cleared off the British had come nearer still. They had closed up twenty paces to their front, reloading as they came. And now, taking the six-deep French in front and flanks, they fired as fast as they could, but steadily and under perfect control. The French, on the other hand, were firing wildly, and simply crumbling away before that well-aimed storm of lead. The four white lines melted into shapeless masses. They rocked and reeled like sinking vessels. In a vain, last effort to lead them on, their officers faced death and found it. All three brigadiers and two of the colonels went down. Montcalm was the only one of four French generals still on horseback; and he was wounded while trying to keep the Languedoc men in action.
Suddenly, on the right, the Sarre and Languedoc battalions turned and ran. A moment more, and Bearn and Guienne, in the centre, had followed them. The wounded Montcalm rode alone among the mad rush of panic-stricken fugitives. But over towards the St Lawrence cliffs he saw the blue line of the Royal Roussillon still fighting desperately against the overlapping redcoats. He galloped up to them. But, even as he arrived, the whole mass swayed, turned, and broke in wild confusion. Only three officers remained. Half the battalion was killed or wounded. Nothing could stay its flight.